PRINCETON'S NEW PRESIDENT.

(Dayton Journal.)

GENERAL satisfaction exists among Princeton alumni and friends of the school over the selection of Professor John Grier Hibben as successor to Dr. Woodrow Wilson of Princeton University. He brings to the position ripe scholarship and a broad sympathy with scholarships and scholars in every field and proved administrative ability. Dr. Hibben's name has been connected with the position ever since Dr. Wilson resigned the office to become Governor of New Jersey, on October 20, 1910.

Although many men, apparently fitted for the position, were available after Woodrow Wilson surrendered the office, there existed peculiar problems of administration which gave the trustees pause. The most serious of these problems which hindered the trustees in their selection were the substituting of the "quad" system for the club idea, which had been suggested by Dr. Wilson before his retirement, and the policy to be followed in regard to the graduate school. The installation of the "quad" system would have meant a radical change in the student life of the university. The plan advocated by Dr. Wilson was to have a set of quadrangles, with tables in common, replace the clubs. The idea was received with no uncertain opposition on the part of influential graduates and Dr. Wilson finally abandoned the plan. However, it was feared that Dr. Wilson's successor might favor the project.

The graduate school problem developed when William Cooper Procter announced a gift of $500,000 to promote the scheme of Andrew F. West who favored a great institution practically independent of the university. The plan was opposed by Dr. Wilson and Mr. Proctor eventually withdrew the offer. During the interim, however, several of those who were mentioned as possible successors to Dr. Wilson had expressed decided views of both problems.

Professor Hibben is an able writer and should prove an able successor to Dr. Wilson and his administration promises to be one of encouraging progress to this time honored institution.

"BUT MOST OF THEM NEVER HAPPENED.”

(Duluth Herald.)

AN elderly philosopher, happy in a contented old age, has these words carved over his mantel:

I am an old man and have had many troubles, but most of them never happened.

Do you know that if you will just sit down before that motto and get it into your system thoroughly you will solve half the troubles of life?

Ninety per cent. of the misery and sorrow and gloom and trouble in the world never happens. You just think they are going to happen, or fear they may happen, and so you shroud yourself in woe and sit in sack-cloth and ashes worrying over them.

That's a very silly but a very human thing to do.

If in your youth you can master the philosophy of that old man, and realize now what perhaps he did not realize until he reached the valley of the shadow where the sun of life is low on the western hills, it will make the difference in your life between happiness and unhappiness.

Fear is a numbing, cramping, paralyzing force that grows by what it feeds on. Banish it, and most of your troubles will go with it. Nearly all the things that cause alarm are formidable only because you use the microscope of fear upon them and so magnify them many times. If you face them with courage and grapple with them, things that seem fearsome and dark and substantial prove to be mere mists that vanish as you boldly advance to meet them.

Doubt is another paralyzing force. You doubt your own capacity, and the chill of that doubt makes you weak and forceless. You doubt your ability to do a hard task that confronts you, and the more you doubt the harder the task be

comes.

But if you have faith in your own capacity it nerves you to the combat and gives you a strength that vanquishes difficul

ties. If you have confidence in your ability to do the task which is before you that confidence will make you strong and your task easy.

Doubt and fear sit in despair before a mole hill.

Courage and confidence will attack and subdue a mountain. Your doubt makes the mole hill look like an unsurmountable peak.

Your courage makes the mountain look like a mole hill.

I am an old man and have had many troubles, but most of them never happened.

You are a young man-or a young woman--and you think you have lots of troubles. How many of them-now be honest with yourself how many of them ever actually happen? How many of the things you worry about and fear and doubt your ability to overcome really amount to anything when you come face to face with them? If you sit down and think that out, and realize, as you must, that only a very small part of them are real, and that most of them are what your doubts and fears make them, you will banish doubt and fear. Cultivate your courage and your self-reliance. Apply to impending troubles the magic touchstone of faith and courage, and watch them vanish.

Some of them won't vanish, perhaps, because they are real; but if you have faith and courage you can overcome the worst of them.

If you indulge your doubts and fears the smallest of them will overcome you.

Literary Notes

As the time approaches for the completion of the Panama Canal and the opening of that highway of commerce to the nations of the world, interest in the subject increases, and the literature thereon becomes more comprehensive and up-to-date. "Panama, The Canal, The Country and The People," by Albert Edwards, just published by The Macmillan Company, is a popularly written narrative of Panama in its present aspects and in its historical past. The geography of the Isthmus; the con figuration and characteristic of Colon and of Panama City; the temperament and traditions of the Panamanians are sketched by facile pen, entertainingly and with a wealth of information and. enlightenment.

The romantic history of the coming of the white man to the Isthmus in 1500, and the many vicissitudes that have been experienced from the time of the earliest colonists, to this present writing, bring graphically before the reader a panorama of stirring events and portraits of characters, some great and worthy, others mean and ignoble, that have directed the forces of civilization in countries of superstition, ignorance and fanaticism.

One of the most interesting chapters is that dealing with the extraordinary career of Las Casas, a character that stands out in history as worthy to take foremost rank among the great leaders of mankind. He lived in most stirring times; he was associated with the greatest personages of his day; and he had the privilege of taking part in the discovery and civilization of the new world. Eloquent, devoted, charitable, fervent, sometimes too fervent, yet very skillful in managing men, he will doubtless remind the reader of his prototype, Saint Paul, and it was very fitting that he should be called, as he was, the "Apostle of the Indies."

The work deals with the days of the great trade, the Presbyterian invasion, and the wars of independence; the fifty-three

revolutions in fifty-seven years; and the predecessors of the United States in the task of canal digging.

From the concluding chapters the reader will learn just what American energy and enterprise have accomplished and are accomplishing in the Canal Zone; the marvelous experiments that are being made in collective activity; and the epoch-making happenings in connection with the greatest undertaking of the age. "A visit to the Isthmus of Panama will make any American proud of his nation." That is the author's conclusion and he emphasizes the vast importance of the "collective agency" that is proving invincible in the face of undue problems and most intricate difficulties, probably on a larger scale than have ever been encountered in the history of the world's big industrial undertakings. The work is beautifully illustrated.

One of the most vital questions before the United States today is that of Immigration, and upon the wise policy of dealing with its complexities and difficulties depends to a larger extent than the casual observer might imagine, the future political, social and economic progress of the nation. A great deal has been written on the subject, from various points of view, and a good many half-truths and prejudicial assertions have found public acceptance. This was owing to the absence of reliable statistical data and authoritative determination of the effects of immigration upon the communities throughout our country. During four years the United States Immigration Commission has gathered such material upon a very complete scale, embracing forty-two volumes. "The Immigration Problem," by Jeremiah W. Jenks, Ph.D., LL.D., and W. Jett Lauck, A.B. (Funk & Wagnalls Company), embodies the gist of the Commission's Report and becomes the standard, up-to-date authority on the question. The authors were associated with the Commission from the beginning, and they act as interpreters of the facts, and the conditions formulated. The facts indicate "that tendencies toward lowering the American standard of living are at work at the present time in this country through our large immigration and that, therefore, it is desirable that by some wisely effective method we restrict such immigration." Assimilation of the immigration and a better distribution so as to avoid congesting certain sections and urban centers are of supreme importance in grappling with the problems.

The newer immigration that comes to these shores shows less